Missing: $400 purse holding $800 cash, plus food stamp cards

A traveling friend sent me an item clipped from a Georgia newspaper that reads, in its entirety:

A woman said she noticed her purse missing from her car just before 5 P.M. Sunday. The car was parked at her residence on Hornet Drive. The woman said the car had been locked, and the purse was in the back seat.

The purse was valued at $400, her wallet was valued at $200, and she said there was $800 cash in the purse, according to the police report. Also missing were the woman’s food stamp cards.

(Emphasis mine.) The sad part is that the food stamp cards were probably worth more than the purse, wallet, and cash.

It bears repeating, as both a critique and a warning of things to come, that the great project of the American Left involves teaching the middle class to think of itself as “poor.” That way, they’ll vote themselves into servitude. The impoverished mind has no use for talk of economic liberty. It values “hope,” which is passive and servile, over “opportunity.”

It has often been observed that the American definition of poverty is remarkably elastic. The most pervasive threat to the health of our poor is obesity. For many, the dollar value of welfare benefits far exceeds the income from an entry-level job – which has far-reaching harmful effects on the general economy, as it distorts the supply, and therefore value, of labor.

The value of welfare has actually exceeded more than just entry-level paychecks. The Heritage Foundation recently published a report showing “the average individual who relies on Washington could receive benefits valued at $32,748, more than the nation’s average disposable income of $32,446.” According to Heritage’s calculations, “government dependency jumped 8.1 percent in the past year, with the most assistance going toward housing, health and welfare, and retirement.”

The cost of the federal food stamp program more than tripled over the past decade, while the number of people participating in the program jumped from 17.2 million to 44.7 million. Each week brings a new jaw-dropping example of food stamp waste and fraud – from lottery millionaires who still enjoy benefits, to drug dealers using EBT cards to pay bail.

The government claims food stamp fraud is decreasing, even though Fox News kicked off a recent report by reminiscing about “a couple in Washington State living in a $1.2 million home, 30,000 college students on the food stamp rolls in Michigan and Wisconsin beneficiaries selling their cards on Facebook.”

The government bans about 1,000 retailers per year for food stamp fraud, but many of the barred retailers find it easy to re-enter the program and become repeat offenders. The ABC News affiliate in Maryland did a little digging in March, and found “nearly a third of the disbarred sites were approved to trade in food stamps again,” with some vendors “wrongly readmitted to the program as many as four times.” The report concluded that stores “could bring in a whopping $50,000 extra per month” by abusing the food stamp program.

Big Government is corrupt government – from crony capitalist deals at the top, to poverty piracy at the bottom. When everyone becomes “poor,” you find more than a few food stamp cards tucked into designer purses.

I’ll bet neither the purse, the wallet, nor the car they were in were made in America.

The only thing we make anymore is the cash and the food stamps. With “workers” like her, it’s easy to see why.

http://eradica.wordpress.com/ Firepower

END ALL Welfare for ghetto sows and their 13 babies!

globalcrap

It pays well being a welfare baby maker with no fathers to raise them..

Borghesius

All of these examples show us that morality reform and government program reform go together. Government programs have now the status of “Near Occasions of Sin” officially leading people into temptation.

Niniane

What kind of idiot leaves their purse in the car for any length of time? I also have to question if the purse and wallet were really worth $600 and why she was carrying $800 in cash. Undoubtedly, she is a renter and this may be just another scam to get the owner’s insurance to pay out.

flmom0f4

Stories like this illustrate why the US has an unemployment problem. When it becomes more lucrative to game the system than to find a job, then gaming the system becomes in and of itself a career. Over at Zerohedge I was reading the statistics that since Obama took office 3 years ago, there have more than 5 million people added to the disability program, coupled with the fact that almost 45 million people receive food stamps, the fact that the labor force participation is at a 30 year low is not at all surprising. Unfortunately, this is a double blow to the economy as these people are not producing, are not a source of tax revenue and are in fact bleeding the system at the expense of those who do work. It won’t be long before we enter the twilight zone as they have in England where a Muslim man who is married to multiple wives may collect benefits for each of those wives. Look at today’s Daily Mail for proof of that.

Leroy_Whitby

My wallet costs about $120. I get it because it lasts about 10 years. I thought that was a luxury. Turns out food stamp folks spend twice that on theirs . . .

Dustoff

S/S going broke in a hurry

JayC777

I don’t have a wallet. I cannot afford to buy this person’s $200 wallet, $400 purse, and me one too.

Jay
It’s not in my budget.

jagscl

Don’t you just love the care and efficiency of government programs? I can hardly wait for Obamacare. (sarcasm)

Spot on! The tripling of food stamp recipients in the last decade is because of Obama’s war on the Easter Bunny.

DaneChile

Why don´t you quit trying to sound English?

Alexxthegreat

THIS is what THE GREAT SOCIETY has wrought. THIS is what hard working, tax paying Americans are paying for…THIS IS WHAT WE MUST GET RID OF IN THIS NEXT ELECTION.
Useful Idiots play a big role in this society…they crafted and destroyed Russia, they are in the throes of ruining Europe and we are next.

Wake up America….soon….But I really think it is getting too late.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Erick-Blair/1851126585 Erick Blair

OK, Ok, I’ll bite. I thought Obama said he was going to win the war on Christmas. Not a cuddly Easter Bunny.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Erick-Blair/1851126585 Erick Blair

This is a good story. But what it describes is not an accident or a case of fraud. This is B. Hussein’s re-election plan. See Julia for an even more cynical example.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_PYMI4LCBAM7PX5457244M3W6BQ Confused

Our typical “poor” person has many or all of the following: car, cell phone (phones if there are teen age children), cable TV, computer, XBOX, more than enough food, clothing and jewelry items with value far in excess of many taxpayers, subsidized rent, air conditioning (many and many then get money to pay for electricity). States are now restricting access to ATM machines, for cash, at strip clubs, casinos, and on cruise ships. Lack of a high school degree and unwed motherhood are the 2 biggest contributors to poverty. Many of the perpetually poor have no aspirations for a better life. Many pass this on to their children. With no aspirations and with every “need” met, why are we surprised? Assistance is supposed to be a hand up but has willfully been morphed to handouts. Yes, few would IMMEDIATELY be better off working, but many welfare recipients are young people who pull themselves out fo poverty. We have built programs that train people not to work, not to have aspirations (as it is not their fault). How come we have millions of families that migrated here without speaking the lanuguage and have built highly successful lives. We encourage poverty and being poor should not be described relative to people who have virtually everything that everyone else has. Dependency is bad for those dependent. Our system encourages dependency from which only a smaller percentage choose to break free.

Wrightclick

I’m curious about the plural
‘cards’. Don’t they just issue a single card now, like a credit card for
food stamps? (‘stamps’ being the old anachronism, like ‘dialing’ the
phone). If she had multiple cards maybe she was trafficking in them. It would explain the $800 cash.

AdamRobertRyan

Every other article on the Internet that mentions this event is from a blog. None is from a newspaper. Could you confirm this story by giving us the newspaper and date?

AdamRobertRyan

Or more likely this is just one of those stories that goes around from blog to blog with no basis in fact.

AdamRobertRyan

Conservatives aren’t racist. Never.

AdamRobertRyan

Conservatives aren’t racist. Never.

AdamRobertRyan

I’ll bet the purse was made UP in America.

http://eradica.wordpress.com/ Firepower

Liberals are smart – always. Supporting ghetto sows with 13 babies has worked out great!

FOR big STATE GOVERNMENTS HIRING PRISON GUARDS

http://www.facebook.com/aemoreira81 Adam Moreira

Food stamp cards? I suspect a professional huckster, and that the cards are stolen…and possibly the purse and cash too, and not from one individual, but from many.

Erin_Coda

Yes, people do abuse the system, but yes, this can happen legitimately; I’ve seen it. You have a good job, you buy the $400 purse and the $200 wallet, then you lose the job and end up on unemployment and food stamps. With the bills piling up, you no longer have a bank account, so you cash your checks at one of Those Places and carry the cash around with you in an envelope. No point in selling back the purse and the wallet; you wouldn’t get more than $50 on Craigslist or Ebay for them and you do still need something to carry your belongings around in. You have a debit-type card for food stamps, and if you have young children, you may also have a WIC card (also “food stamps” but not quite the same thing). I watched something similar happen to my mom, a diehard Conservative, after she lost her job and had nothing to fall back on.

daibutsu

Quite a few years ago, but after LBJ’s “Great Society” there was a newspaper column here in the now defunct “Washington Star” called Action Line. An article that made it to refrigerator magnet promenance was titled; ” we are so poor our baby has to sleep in the box the color TV came in.” Things haven’t changed.

Alexxthegreat

The thing Conservatives are good at is telling the truth…Useful idiots call it racism…but it’r really the truth.

http://twitter.com/Doc_0 John Hayward

It was sent to me from the Brunswick News. They don’t appear to have run the story on their fairly limited web site. The article was not dated. I reproduced the text of the article in full, word for word. I have seen no reason to doubt its authenticity.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_HFSPDCUWP5YLCPRYQ2IVUVXSDM twolaneflash

Hey, AdamRobertRyan, expert authenicator. Were the SNAP cards her own, or is she in the black market food stamp business? Shouldn’t she just have one SNAP card? With all that cash and multiple SNAP cards, is she a bundler for Obama? Is she a Democrat, otherwise, wouldn’t “Tea Bagger” appear in the article to reference her? AdamRobertRyan, leftist drone, specializes in the Alinsky tactic of demanding proof but offering none, always moving the goal post, throwing up straw men, playing the now laughable race card. This repeated pattern of disingenuous Leftist behavior has become obvious and monotonous in every form of media, and here as well.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_VLGXDLG3ZG3E4QC5XOCTCMQ7C4 CG

“in that situation due to no fault of your own.”
NO FAULT? none really?

Maybe if you had managed you finances before this CRISIS you would be able to take care of yourself. No one should spend $2500 for a purse. You could have bought a car with that and the car’s not losing value like your purse.

Conservatives are not making fun of these people in the comments we are pissed at them for taking such handouts. Especially when they don’t NEED them.

http://www.facebook.com/ivy.dayton Ivy Dayton

“Food stamp cards” were replaced almost a decade ago by electronic debit cards that are passworded. Either this “story” was written by a horribly ignorant reporter or it’s a fake.

BettyBlueEyes

This is BS. Just because a woman may be cheating on her food stamps, it’s all a liberal issue? Get offa my lawn, you nutty people. First of all, what she does is her decision alone. Second, let’s look at other options. Maybe she owned the purse and wallet long before she lost her job and qualified for food stamps. And third, Georgia is predominantly conservative. The woman could have been a Republican.

BettyBlueEyes

Consider yourself really fortunate, then. I had to support my two kids on welfare when we lost almost everything. I was glad it was there because we would have gone hungry otherwise. Today, I make a six-figure income and I am able to donate to organizations that help poor families. It’s my way of paying back the American people for the help I was given. If you’d rather let your kids go hungry instead of asking for help, then the shame is on you.

BettyBlueEyes

Good on you. Kick someone when they’re down. Just what Jesus would have done.

BettyBlueEyes

“I have no reason to doubt…” But you put it up there for everyone else just because of your belief.

BettyBlueEyes

Oh wait. This is a conservative blog… not a news site. No wonder there’s so much one-sided blather. LOLOLOL!!!!!

http://www.facebook.com/rkentesqva Richard Kent

I speak as a conservative: the bitter ignorance of this story is palpable. Has the writer not considered that many cultures don’t use banks at all? A lot of people, particularly immigrants, are cash-only? Laughing at this person for losing $800 and food stamps is despicable. Have you considered that that $800 plus food stamps may be all that person has to live on for a month?
Really. Nonsense like this gives the stalinist left excuse to mock and hate us. Stop it. Just stop it.

http://www.facebook.com/people/Joseph-Dupont/736557700 Joseph Dupont

wE ARE DOOMED. AND YOU KNOW WHAT.. WE SHOULD SPEND LESS TIME ON WORRYING ABOUT WHO IS GOING TO WIN THE SUPER BOWL AND MORE TIME ON THESE ISSUES.

Endoxa52

There are racist Conservatives, just as there are racist Liberals. But Conservatives are not so concerned with a person’s race like Liberals tend to be.

http://www.facebook.com/amy.f.mayne Amy Fuqua Mayne

The difference is that liberal racism is disguised as compassion. Like in “Let me give you welfare, food stamps, free phones and medical care so that you won’t ever have to use your brian and get a job like the capable people. Oh, and don’t forget to vote Democrat!” It’s called the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Something is wrong with this picture if the person getting food stamps has designer wallets and purses…hmmmm….

katie

And, oh yes, sell that $400 purse for $50, buy a $10 purse and use the $40 for decent food for your kids. Things can ALWAYS be justified. It’s perception. My perception is MY reality.

http://www.facebook.com/jasonedward.prather Jason Edward Prather

If Hillary clinton would only stop thinking she can go anywhere she wants her purse wouldn’t be stolen! Nah, wait if it were Hillary she would have stolen the man’s wallet and HIS money and kept her purse!

getoffthebandwagon

People hear stuff that sounds good for their cause, but the fact is that there aren’t good facts in this article. First, she could have gotten the $400 purse from a garage sale or thrift store and paid $20.00. Second, since it’s the beginning of the month that $800 could have been her entire welfare check, and third, I know some elderly folks who get $17.00 a month on food stamps so let’s not make assumptions because it sounds good and proves how worthless our poor are… Oh, and the obesity is because it’s easier to feed a family on starches and processed food, than it is to feed a family on whole grains and fresh fruit and vegetables. Not saying it’s right, I’m just saying you’re believing in an article that is not factual,, but opinionated and assuming! Way to get your news!

getoffthebandwagon

yeah, cuz poverty is sooooooooooooo much better than living a good life. Do you all buy your own lines?

getoffthebandwagon

no, it’s stories like this that aren’t factual that make people like you judge others………………..

http://twitter.com/TodThompson Tod Thompson

Everyone is glad your kids didn’t go hungry, Betty. But we don’t want to bankroll people who don’t want to work when there are jobs out there. If people want to work and have any kind of experience or expertise at all they can find something, even in this economy. My wife’s recent experience of getting two offers within a week of looking only confirms this to me. I just don’t buy the stories of people who say they are looking for a job for two years and can’t find anything. They just aren’t looking very hard. And then there are the people who never have worked because they have figured out how to “work the system”. Why should I work to buy some lady a $400 purse? If she can afford that she doesn’t need welfare.

BettyBlueEyes

Everyone is glad your wife found a job really fast, Tod. But it isn’t that way for a lot of people, and my bet is that it wasn’t that way for a lot of people during the very recent recession. I lost a job and it took me a year (yes, a full year) to find something. Yet I’m college-educated and with management experience, and I’m a whiz at networking. The fact is, the older you are, the harder your job prospects. Or your skills aren’t needed. Or there’s too much competition for the position. But again, I’m glad your wife was so in demand that she had two job offers in a week. Lucky you.

BettyBlueEyes

Ghetto sows with 13 babies? What story books are you reading?

http://www.facebook.com/people/Tim-Condon/595758652 Tim Condon

A $400 purse, $800 in cash, and lots more in food stamps is “poverty”? Do you buy your OWN line?

http://www.facebook.com/people/Tim-Condon/595758652 Tim Condon

You might start with “Pick a Better Country,” by Ken Hamblin.

BettyBlueEyes

Unless you’ve been on welfare yourself, you have no idea what it’s like.

Theresa Easley

You must be losing the debate because now you are sinking to insults. That’s something liberals do when they are losing.

BethRFinch

Pot, meet kettle.

Mark Veturis

It’s funny how the republicons can be called christian, yet publish unsigned and undocumented trash like this to turn you readers against the poor. Where in the teachings of Jesus Christ is this allowed? To top it off, most all of you fell for it.